The XX Factor: How Working Women Are Creating a New Society by Alison Wolf

High-achieving women and men are becoming a breed apart, insists this study

Alison Wolf: no quibbling with the heft of her research (Paul Vicente)

T
here has been a rash of books recently about the rise of women. Last year, we
had The End of Men by Hanna Rosin and The Richer Sex by Liza Mundy, both of
which dealt with the effect on society of huge numbers of working women
outearning their male partners and peers. Now Alison Wolf, professor of
public sector management at King’s College London, has added her voice to a
crowded field with The XX Factor.

Her essential thesis is that professional, ­educated women — we’re talking the
elite here, those who went to top universities and have big jobs — now
behave far more like their highly educated male counterparts than like the
rest of womankind. For every professional woman ­zipping between
high-powered meetings in ­vertiginous heels (Wolf is obsessed by shoes) and
expecting her husband to do more of the domestic chores, there are four who
lead more traditional female